Author: THE HOBBLEDEHOY

Michael Stevenson, aka Dai Bando, Johnny Foreigner, Monsieur Pas De Merde, is a blogger of French and British culture. His blogs "Pas De Merde" and "The Hobbledehoy" have been called "marvelous" by some, and "meh" by others.

“There is infinity through a telescope; infinity through a microscope”: DiS Meets Yann Tiersen

I speak to Yann Tiersen a few hours before he is due to play the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, as he continues to tour his new album Eusa. A collection of ten piano songs originally released as sheet music, Tiersen decided to record the songs after playing them live. In the midst of his tour, I find Tiersen unwell with a miserable autumn cold. “At least I don’t have to sing tonight!” he laughs, before coughing and spluttering over the phone to me some more. Despite being so unwell that he clearly should be in bed with whatever the French equivalent of Lemsip is, he continues enthusiastically. Nothing, especially not a meagre cold, will stop him conveying the love he has for his latest project – a musical mapping of his home in Ushant.

It doesn’t seem like eighteen years since Tiersen’s 1998 solo album Le Phare, or fifteen years since 2001’s Bafta winning Amélie brought him into the musical consciousness of so many. Made up of tracks from his first three studio albums, La Valse Des Monstres (1995), Rue Des Cascades(1996) and the aforementioned Le Phare, the Amélie soundtrack felt like a love letter to the bustling Parisian area of Montmartre; Le Phare, by contrast, was an album where the remote, desolate landscape of Ushant inspired Tiersen to write in self-imposed seclusion on the island. Eusa, as it is known in the local Breton language, is again providing inspiration for Tiersen’s ninth studio album; however, rather than being merely inspired by Ushant, the album is Ushant, as Tiersen uses music to paint a vivid picture of his home landscape.

READ ENTIRE: “There is infinity through a telescope; infinity through a microscope”: DiS Meets Yann Tiersen / In Depth // Drowned In Sound

KKK’s official newspaper supports Donald Trump for president 

The controversial publication ran a large photo of the Republican nominee on its front page.

 

Among the small number of American newspapers that have embraced Donald Trump’s campaign, there is one, in particular, that stands out.

It is called the Crusader — and it is one of the prominent newspapers of the Ku Klux Klan.

Under the banner “Make America Great Again,” the paper’s current issue devoted its entire front page to a lengthy defense of Trump’s message — an embrace some have labeled a de facto endorsement.

Source: KKK’s official newspaper supports Donald Trump for president – The Washington Post

Chanson Du Jour: Parfait Inconnu

Chanson Du Jour November 1,2016 Jeanne Cherhal “Parfait Inconnu”

I love this oldie from Cherhal’s 2004 album 12 Far Pa An. I haven’t seen a reputable english translation for “Parfait  Inconnu.”  It is surely about neither a tall glass of ice cream, nor incontinence. I think the song is about falling in love with a “perfect  stranger,” while knowing we don’t really know a damn thing about him/her. Or perhaps not…

Help with a traslation, mes amis?

Agnes Obel’s Haunting Chamber Pop | Mother Jones

Alex Bruel Flagstad Agnes Obel

Citizen of Glass
Play it Again Sam

Agnes Obel’s music would be the perfect soundtrack for a scary movie, but not a brutish modern one—her haunting chamber pop belongs in the world of old-fashioned spooky films like the 1940s classics “Cat People” and “The Uninvited.” (David Lynch is reportedly a fan, which makes sense.)

Citizen of Glass, the Danish singer’s wonderfully transfixing third outing, weaves old and new instruments, including strings, piano, mellotron and the Trautonium, an early 20th-century ancestor of the synthesizer, into a luminous backdrop for her eerily composed vocals. Poised and uneasy at once, Obel seems to be revisiting episodes of extreme distress from a distance, as if seeking to dull the trauma through calm reflection. As she declares in “It’s Happening Again,” “The past isn’t dead/It’s alive, it’s happening/In the back of my head.” The result is a beautiful album likely to soothe the dark night of the soul, or induce an anxiety attack.

Source: Agnes Obel’s Haunting Chamber Pop | Mother Jones

Paris tries to woo tourists back with better English skills and a more friendly state of emergemcy

Speaking to Journal du Dimanche, she said: “We are going through an extremely difficult period, marked by terrorist attacks and extreme weather conditions.”But all is not perdu (lost).

After trips to Tokyo, New York and Boston to discuss the city’s malaise with high-level tourism professionals, Pécresse has come up with a six-point plan to woo foreign visitors back to the French capital.The plan will focus on three main areas: hospitality, quality of service and security.

READ FULL STORY at Source: Paris tries to woo tourists back with better English skills and a more friendly state of emergemcy